


One Short of Unlucky

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Eventual Fluff, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2429417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will had something for Nico long before he ever did anything about it. In fact, he didn't even have a word for what it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Short of Unlucky

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who finished BoO and jumped on the solangelo train? It's me and I don't regret it. Please accept this fluff-laden thingamajig as a token of my trashery. 
> 
> Most of this came from just wanting an explanation as to why Will was all about Nico so quickly. It kind of concerns the concept of twin flame soulmates (vaguely Plato-ish, so it fits) while not being it completely outright. ;w; I just thought the concept was adorbs thx. Also, MAJOR BoO spoilers ahead. Just a fair warning to ya. o/

**I.**  
  
It started before the final fight with Gaea. Like, way before.  
  
It started not the first, but the _second_ time Will Solace saw Nico di Angelo. It wouldn’t have really worked out the first time, given that Nico was ten years old, scrawny and excitable, chatting away with the Hermes kids like he had known them his whole life. Will was thirteen going on fourteen, and plenty invested in his own cabin. After the first time, something bad happened that Will was never really sure of, and Nico was gone.  
  
The second time, things were different.  
  
Nico was still young, but old at the same time. Will had a knack for the poetic like that. The kid was a shadow, never standing out in the sun, a dark streak in the bowl-like valley of vivid Demeter-sponsored green and the Iris-rainbow spray of wildflowers.  
  
Will wasn’t sure what to think. By all accounts, he shouldn’t have cared at all. He was older, presumably wiser, and from a parentage that was practically the opposite of Nico’s.  
  
He didn’t have a name for what he felt. _Invested_ was one word, but it didn’t fit. _Crush_ didn’t occur for a few more years.  
  
  
 **II.  
  
** After the Battle of Manhattan, it was a long time before he saw Nico again.  
  
There were too many battles, too many people lost, too many empty bunks in the Apollo cabin by the end of the summer. For a long while, Will felt genuinely lost, which wasn’t a great quality for a cabin counselor to have. To his credit, he tried his best. He herded his younger siblings and protected them like a shepherd, he healed and fixed and splinted and administered until there were times he was sure he would pass out, he tried to be the best example of optimism and spirit to the people following him. For that period of time, everything was forced sunny smiles, soft songs plucked out from his guitar, songs about paradise and birds and flowers of every color, rainbows dancing off the water, the sun like gold in the sky. He hated it.  
  
Then Nico reappeared.  
  
It was no stretch to say Will wasn’t a big fan of death. It was terrible. It reduced his cabin’s numbers and made his fingers calloused from making so many shrouds. It was the cause of the hot tears that soaked into his camp shirt when someone would lose a sibling or a friend.  
  
And it followed Nico like a loyal pet.  
  
There was nothing in an Apollo kid’s nature that catered to death. Ares kids were all about it, being warmongers and all. Demeter kids respected its cyclical nature and its effect on plantlife. Even Hermes kids seemed to deal with it pretty well, considering their whole deal with trickery and bringing people close to death for the heck of it.  
  
Apollo kids were born to combat it. They had an innate need to _heal_ , to stave off the encroaching fingers of Death as best they could. In short, it would have made more sense for Will to instinctively not like Nico.  
  
That didn’t happen. Instead, he found comfort in his appearance. Short, skinny, dark-eyed, wearing an aviator jacket way too big for him, keeping his hands in his pockets and away from the handle of that nightmare sword that was always at his side. Despite the rumors, Will couldn’t bring himself to imagine that Nico would ever actually _hurt_ anyone, regardless of that freaky weapon of his. That was kind of a nice thought.  
  
He liked to imagine that Death was an awkward bony teenager, more interested in finding the darkest spot of shade under a tree rather than tearing souls from their bodies.  
  
  
 **III.  
  
** Things got confusing _really_ fast.  
  
Will remembered there was a boy at Camp Half-Blood. Dark hair, eyes like the ocean, strong and kind and good and--  
  
That was it. There wasn’t anything else.  
  
There were new people, though. A tall, Superman-looking blond with a scar on his lip (Will could have healed that easily) and a constant look of bewilderment, a young tan girl with coarsely-cut hair and multicolored eyes that could have stunned anyone, and an elfish boy with a grease-streaked face and hands that never stopped moving. Will gave the last one a tour, although his mind was pretty well occupied the whole time. There also ended up being a gigantic bronze dragon thrown in. That was interesting.  
  
They were claimed quickly; Zeus, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus, respectively. There was more confusion, prophecies, and quests.  
  
Will just felt lost.  
  
He occupied his time with fixing the broken chariot that Annabeth borrowed (not as good as a Hephaestus kid, but it gave him something to do), and healing people. None of it took his mind away from a very key point.  
  
He had started _really_ dreaming again. Most Apollo kids had at least a tiny gift of prophecy. The majority just got the minimum dose. They could tell what lunch was going to be the next day, or what sports teams were going to win that week. Minor by all accounts, but Will ended up being one of the exceptions.  
  
He had had prophetic dreams in the past, or lightning-quick visions of important things. Apollo didn’t necessarily _favor_ him, but he hadn’t skimped on him either.  
  
So, it was a little strange when his dreams started to hone in on Nico.  
  
For awhile, he wasn’t sure _what_ he was seeing. At first, he wondered if it was just a regular abstract dream. Nico in a black toga thrown on over his regular clothes, standing in a massive stone rotunda, faced with people in similar clothes. Nico standing with a young girl with cinnamon-colored hair, eyes wide and scared. Nico confronting a familiar boy (eyes the color of ocean glass and--) before promptly leaving.  
  
Nico fighting something. Falling.  
  
Falling.  
  
Will kept waking up in cold sweat, his hands shaking, every muscle tense and coiled like he was innately preparing to attack something.  
  
He didn’t tell anyone, which in retrospect was really stupid.  
  
But after a few of those dreams, his mind was swamped. He began to worry, to fidget, to feel like his entire body was trying to go somewhere but not telling him _where_. Will briefly attempted scrying, first through an enchanted piece of glass that the Hecate kids let him borrow (it nearly shattered, which wasn’t a good sign), and then through an IM.  
  
He threw a drachma through a drinking fountain stream, asked to see Nico di Angelo, and was met with static.  
  
“Sorry, the person you requested is not available at this time. Please leave a message or try your call again!” a cheery voice said.  
  
He felt like he was swallowing back bile.  
  
  
 **IV.  
  
** Another dream.  
  
There was a wide platform, made of some shiny black stone, probably obsidian. It was like a natural outcropping, overlooking a canyon lit dusky red by a river of lava below. At first, it looked like there was another tiny grouping of black stones on the edge of the platform. Upon closer inspection, it was a person.  
  
Nico di Angelo was lying on his side, gripping a spot on his left, just under his ribs. Blood spilled freely from between his fingers. It flowed from his nose as well, and somewhere above his hairline. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, randomly-timed shudders wracking his body.  
  
All Will could hear was one thing.  
  
 _I want to die._  
  
Will promptly woke up and ran to the closest sink basin, emptying the contents of his stomach in one go.  
  
He didn’t have to guess what that place was. It was as clear to him as Camp Half-Blood was right outside his window.  
  
Nico was in Tartarus.  
  
He barely registered a hand on his back until he heard someone call his name. Will flinched and instinctively reached for a weapon that wasn’t there. Then, in the limited light, he saw that it was just one of his siblings, a girl around his age with platinum-blonde hair pulled into a ponytail loosened by sleep. She looked concerned, and maybe even a little scared.  
  
“Will?” she whispered.  
  
“C-Cait,” he returned, still feeling like he had acid in his throat.  
  
“You okay?” she asked, not removing her hand from his back.  
  
He frowned before nodding, honestly eager to chase his dream out of his head as fast as he could. “Stomach problems,” he lied. “Maybe something I ate. I’ll fix it.”  
  
Cait looked doubtful, but silently nodded before padding back to her bunk.  
  
Will stood there for a moment longer before washing out the basin best he could. The dream wasn’t leaving. In fact, it was like someone had burned the image into his brain like a brand.  
  
He rinsed his mouth out before drinking a few Dixie cups full of water. Finally, he laid back down on his bunk, eyes wide open, heart still thrumming rabbit-quick in his chest.  
  
When he finally did fall back asleep, he dreamt about falling into an endless black abyss.  
  
  
 **V.  
  
** Will didn’t know what Gaea’s deal was, but he _really_ didn’t like her.  
  
First of all, she scared the living sunlight out of everyone in his cabin. It was kind of hard to keep everyone in line when there was usually someone hanging out plucking out the funeral march on a ukulele. Will eventually got everyone straightened around, albeit roughly, and informed them that if the war did get to them, then they would fill their roles appropriately. They had people to heal, and not a lot of time to do it.  
  
Secondly, Will _liked_ nature. He enjoyed taking walks, basking in the sun, feeling sand under his toes. All that fun stuff. It kind of made things a little sour to know that nature decided it didn’t like _them_. Not as fun.  
  
Third, Gaea was, pardon his French, an _asshole._ Prophecies and visions were in full force while the war was going on. Between Rachel and the entirety of the Apollo cabin, and a few seers from Hecate’s cabin, they pretty much had a play-by-play of everything. The camp eventually organized a daily morning meeting where they went over everyone’s dreams. Usually it went along the lines of _this_ monster died, but _this_ one came back from Tartarus, _this_ hero decided to side with Gaea, and _this_ location just got taken over. They rarely had any good news.  
  
Will explained his dreams in detail, but left out a few things. He didn’t talk about his dream with Nico in the jar, or him being broken out and looking like something out of an old war PSA. He felt like it wasn’t in his place to talk about it.  
  
 _Then_ they learned about the Legion’s intentions. That was a pretty bad day.  
  
Will wanted to believe that the Seven plus however many people helping them would accomplish all their missions, but it seemed like such an enormous order.  
  
In the mean time, he tried his best to make it easier for everyone else. There were still kids at the camp, some no older than twelve. Even the teenagers were uneasy, and most of them were so vastly unprepared for a battle with more intensity than Capture the Flag. They had to train, yes, but they also needed to have that last little shred of innocence before things went south.  
  
He had definitely been trying to be a good counselor before. Faced with what looked like inevitable death, he tried to be the best counselor he could be. He did archery lessons, taught the younger ones how to canoe correctly and fished them out when they tipped over, purposely sang off-key once at a singalong so that some of the monsters in the woods howled and everyone around the fire burst into laughter, did cabin inspections, and attempted to stave off the cleaning harpies when one of his cabin mates didn’t finish sweeping the floors.  
  
The other counselors caught on, and for a few weeks, things seemed normal again. He noticed a lot of the campers were grateful, relaxed and not tense for the first time in what seemed like forever.  
  
But Will was very good at recognizing a calm before a storm.  
  
Funny part was that it was literal.  
  
A storm raged off Long Island one night, and Will dreamt again.  
  
He saw the ruins of a palace, but it wasn’t very clear. The image was blurry and kept tilting back and forth like he was on a ship trying to view it through the rain.  
  
There were two people, although they just looked like blurry multicolored shapes. They stood still, and a third shape danced around them, looking like nothing more than shimmering heat. There was a flurry of movement and a third person joined them, dressed in all white.  
  
There were words Will couldn’t make out, and then yelling. The image shuddered like someone was putting pressure on it. He felt sick to his stomach, wanting to wake up and leave the palace. Something terrible was happening.  
  
Then, it was like someone pulled cotton out of Will’s ears, but only for a moment.  
  
“That’s the truth,” he heard Nico say, his voice icy and tense. “That’s the big secret.”  
  
Will didn’t know what the secret was, but he felt like he heard something he shouldn’t have.  
  
He woke up to a flash of lightning in the distance, but Camp Half-Blood was as still as ever, with crickets faintly chirping outside.  
  
It wasn’t going to last long.  
  
  
 **VI.  
  
** While the Roman Legion was primed outside their camp, Will met with Chiron privately.  
  
The old centaur looked like he had aged more in the past few months than the several thousand-some-odd years that he had actually lived. There was more gray at his temples, his beard looking unkempt, the lines at the corners of his eyes and rounding his mouth looking like crevasses. He looked exhausted, but he was still the best thing they had next to a cornerstone for the moment. Chiron was a constant.  
  
Will sat in an ancient recliner which had probably been overstuffed at some point in the 1960s. He held a cup of too-hot coffee between his hands, but the heat did a good job of bringing him into the _now_ , rather than his headspace which had been way too cluttered recently.  
  
Chiron was in his wheelchair, a leatherbound photo album on his lap, the spine cracked with age. That was how Will had found him, presumably looking back at past camping memories like he was mourning them.  
  
Despite the constant stress, the endless amount of planning, and what ever else Chiron had on his plate, he still stayed calm, his voice steady and warm. “I assure you, Will, what ever you have to ask probably isn’t as ridiculous as you think,” he said.  
  
Will doubted it. He stared down at the surface of his coffee, light tan from a copious dosage of cream and sugar.  
  
“What does it mean when you...” he trailed off, trying to find a better way to put it. There wasn’t really a better way, so he let out a defeated sigh and continued. “When you dream about someone you barely know?”  
  
“I’m assuming you mean the visions in your dreams,” Chiron replied.  
  
Will nodded stiffly.  
  
Chiron folded his hands over the photo album and looked up thoughtfully at the ceiling. “I suppose it depends on who it is and how many visions you’ve been having.”  
  
“It didn’t used to be a lot,” Will admitted. “Now I have them a few times a month.”  
  
“All of the same person?”  
  
He nodded again.  
  
Chiron fell into a thoughtful silence, idly running one finger over a crack on the album’s spine. “It’s interesting. Perhaps you share a bond with this person.”  
  
“But I don’t really _know_ them,” Will stressed. By now, he sure felt like he did.  
  
“As bonds like that have a tendency to be,” Chiron returned. “Sometimes people have them without understanding why, and it may be _years_ before they learn the reason. Fate is a strong force, Will.”  
  
 _Fate._ Will had about had it with that word, and any word like it. _Fate, destiny, prophecy._ All those words seemed to mean the same thing, and they usually ended badly. He sighed and sank into the recliner a little more. “What kind of bond would this even be?” he tried.  
  
“I do not think I could really give you a complete answer, I’m afraid,” Chiron said with a sympathetic smile.  
  
“Thought so,” Will said, trying not to sound too sullen. The only problem was he probably wouldn’t get his answer. If Camp Half-Blood wasn’t blown to smithereens by the Romans, then Gaea would take care of the rest. If the Seven succeeded in their quest, and Reyna and Nico (he still didn’t know who Reyna was) completed theirs, then he might have a chance. However, with the way things were going, the percentile was slimming with every passing hour.  
  
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Chiron continued, sounding oddly reassuring all things considered. “Fate is converging on this place. If there was ever a moment to discover the source of your bond, now might be the time.”  
  
 _Right before we’re all gonna die,_ Will mentally added. He took a sip of his coffee, wincing when it burnt the tip of his tongue. He could have easily healed it, but he let it sting.  
  
  
 **VII.  
  
** The last thing Will expected Nico to be wearing was a tropical floral print shirt.  
  
Granted, it was probably a size or two too big, and torn up in a few places, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the _hideous floral print_. It kind of burned a little.  
  
Then again, the whole day had been full of things Will hadn’t expected. For instance, delivering a little (cute!) satyr baby wasn’t on his initial list of things to do, but that happened. After that, he took on the mission with Cecil and Lou Ellen (and Lou Ellen took the opportunity to shove a black shirt over his head). With an entire war and possibly the end of the world tapdancing on what was to happen within the next hour or so, seeing Nico in the shirt was the icing on a very weird cake.  
  
Except Nico seemed just as surprised to see him.  
  
Aside from the shirt, and the fact that what ever happened with Apollo had shut down the collective visions-and-prophecies machine, Will felt like someone had given him an unraveled tapestry, pointed at Nico, and told him to start weaving it back together with his help.  
  
Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to have a chance to do that if the Legion obliterated the camp and everyone in it, or if Gaea would do the honors but with the whole world instead.  
  
But something suddenly caught his thoughts, effectively reeling them away from that moment. There was a shudder that ran through the air, but it had nothing to do with the war. It was like a pulse in the shadows of every blade of grass, every tree, even their own shadows that were yet to rise long on the ground as the sun rose. He felt around for it, feeling that instinct to _heal_ , although he wasn’t sure what had been hurt. His hands moved on their own accord, touching one of Nico’s (fortunately, he had worn gloves _and_ washed his hands after delivering the baby).  
  
Or, partially touching one of Nico’s. His hand passed through it, like it wasn’t made of anything more than thin paper. It affirmed everything Hedge had told him.  
  
Will didn’t understand much about how the Underworld affected the body, although it would probably be worth a study. He _did_ understand that frequent, high-energy jumps in shadow travel was practically unraveling Nico molecule by molecule, and if he did it again, it would probably wipe him right out of existence. Will wasn’t having that, especially when he was still trying to figure out what their bond was.  
  
He was trying to guess, and he felt like he was on the right track. He wasn’t about to let Nico get himself killed before he found out.  
  
Fortunately, Nico listened, even though he looked like he was going to start searching for the perfect moment to kick Will in the shin.  
  
  
 **VIII.  
  
** How they managed to survive, Will was probably never going to be sure.  
  
He even checked to make sure that there wasn’t a stray child of Tyche following them around. At the end, it was just him standing beside Nico. One child of a god who hadn’t been on the radar in ages, and the other being the child of a god that had investments in people with bad luck.  
  
Granted, it wasn’t like their luck had been completely stellar. Will imagined Octavian was a living personification of bad luck. He was everything an Apollo descendant _should not_ have been. He was diluted, wild-eyed, snarling, gaunt monster of a boy, more intent on killing things than helping them. Will guessed that before he appropriated the position of praetor or priest or what ever he was trying to be, he had been chasing prophecies. An _augur_ , he had heard. Generally, unless someone was an appointed oracle, things never really turned out well for people who could see the future like that. That is, if Octavian saw much of anything at all.  
  
Obviously, in the moments leading to Octavian’s demise, he didn’t see anything but a blazed trail of mass destruction. Will supposed his intentions might have been decent if it had been anyone but him trying to carry it out. Either way, they watched as Octavian managed to single-handedly immolate himself into a screaming comet, headed directly for a writhing, shrieking earth mother.  
  
Luck was weird, but both nuisances exploded. At least, Will thought they did. It was hard to be sure beyond that massive sun-bright explosion.  
  
After the light faded, Will turned to Nico, expecting maybe some expression of satisfaction. The son of the god of the Underworld probably would have found something good about it (Will wasn’t going to say that it freaked him out). Instead, he found Nico ashen-faced and wide-eyed, looking like he had just witnessed a murder.  
  
Will wasn’t sure he could argue with that.  
  
  
 **IX.**  
  
Will couldn’t be bothered to remember the last time he had actually _slept_.  
  
That didn’t count catnaps or dozing off for ten minutes at a time. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a full eight hours, or even took a substantial nap. There was just too much to _do_ , and not enough healers to go around. The infirmary had become a crowded mesh of noises and smells, sometimes overpowering. The groans of the injured went in time with rapidfire healing chants and songs. Aside from ordering specific tools from assistants nearby, Will was speaking only in ancient Greek. English was starting to sound funny to him.  
  
On the first full day after the victory celebration (Will was too busy healing to attend, but he heard it wasn’t all that celebratory), the funeral rites started up. Will knew that Nico had been put in charge of them, a task he was all too willing to take.  
  
The only time Will really left the infirmary was to sit though the burial rites of those who had died in the Apollo cabin. Sleep-deprived and caught in that familiar whirlwind of grief, Will sat on one of the benches, half-dressed in a scrub shirt and shorts, and wrapped his arms around his knees. The other people from the cabin attending didn’t say anything about it. They had all been just as busy healing and working. They weren’t in the state of trying to look good in front of everyone else. Will saw too many Apollo shrouds, which blurred into a mix of white and gold as tears filled his eyes.  
  
He knew all their names, all their stories. He knew what some of them had been through, what some of them were planning on doing with their lives once they left the camp. Even for as young as they were, as full of hope and optimism as they could be, they sacrificed themselves with the full intent of saving their safe place, and by that extension, saving the world.  
  
He let himself be pulled into a lull by Nico’s chanting. It was soft and low, constant, working through the syllables of the chant effortlessly. Will didn’t pay attention to the words, but then again, they weren’t for him. They were still spoken with conviction, fully intended to guide the spirits of the deceased to the other side, to wish them good fortune in their judging. In Nico’s words, so much like poetry in themselves, Will could practically _see_ Elysium. Then again, he could have also been right on the edge of dreaming.  
  
Nico’s chanting was over too quickly. The pyre burned, the shrouds disintegrating to smoke that wafted into the air, carrying Will’s family with it.  
  
Eventually, he had to wipe his tears away and get back to work. He didn’t want to see any more demigods in shrouds after that, and he was bent on working to insure it.  
  
  
 **X.  
  
** He did okay until early morning on the second day.  
  
He had slumped into a chair at some point around three in the morning, blood still on his hands from attempting to remove not one but _three_ barbed arrowheads from an unfortunate Ares cabin kid’s right thigh. Even through the ambrosia and nectar, she still cried out when he went to remove them. By the time it was over, his nerves had been scraped completely raw. When Cait took over for him, telling him to get at least an hour of rest before he decided to go back at it, he tried to recollect himself.  
  
He ended up just getting _really_ pissed at Nico.  
  
Maybe it was the hour talking, or the blood on his scrubs, or the fact that the little bottom-dweller hadn’t showed his face since the battle had finished up. Will knew that the burial rites had been over for awhile, and maybe it was a little unfair to Nico, but Will kind of expected better.  
  
The thing was, he was pretty sure Nico had been trying to avoid him since the end of the battle. When Will would catch sight of him at any point in camp, Nico would immediately point his gaze right at the ground and walk away like he hadn’t seen Will at all. At first, Will chalked it up to stress, or maybe residual sadness from the funerals. But it kept _happening_. It was probably pretty normal otherwise, but Will had barely slept, was on the last centimeter of his fuse, and was still having that issue of _what was Nico to him?_ At this rate, he wasn’t going to find out.  
  
And so, bloodshot, thirsty, exhausted, and feeling particularly irritated, Will decided at that moment, at 3:21 AM, he was going to find out, even if he had to do it the hard way.  
  
He had two more surgeries and countless stitches to apply until he got another break. By then, he at least had the fortune of going back to his cabin and changing his clothes. He didn’t look fabulous, but at that moment, he could have cared less.  
  
He stormed out the door, only to see Nico across the field, standing in front of the Hades cabin and talking to Jason Grace. It was brief, and probably the result of countless hours of working, but Will felt a brief flare of anger, like punching Jason in the face would probably make everything better. Until then, he had a son of Hades to reprimand.  
  
Nico came over with all the finesse of a wounded gazelle. He had his head ducked low, his shoulders hunched, his eyes going between Will’s face and the ground. For a moment, Will felt a little guilty about wanting to launch into a tirade. Then he remembered why he was angry in the first place, and he let Nico know on no uncertain terms.  
  
As he spoke, he realized exactly _why_ he was so angry. When Nico threatened to leave Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter for good, he felt _it_. Will was afraid. There was this sensation of feeling like something was being torn away before he even knew what it was. Like a portion of him was about to be sliced off and he wasn’t going to be prepared.  
  
Like he was losing half of himself.  
  
It didn’t make sense. Then again, if Chiron was one to go off of (and he was), it wasn’t supposed to make sense.  
  
It was infuriating, and so at ends with how Will usually felt. People always thought of him as calm and collected, having the much envied ability to work under enormous amounts of pressure. But never once in all of his years of being at camp, or really any time in his life for that matter, did he feel the way he did right at that moment. All that pressure came down just right, precisely on a deep fracture he wasn’t aware he had.  
  
He knew about fractures. He knew that a limb had to be set just right, given time to allow it to heal, tended and cared for. The fracture was there, and the bone had to be set.  
  
And then Nico agreed with him.  
  
He agreed to stay at camp, agreed to Will’s ultimatum to rest for at least three days. He agreed, set the bone, and was allowing Will to set the healing process in motion.  
  
As he walked away to go talk to Percy, Will started to understand.  
  
After years and years of wondering, the word _crush_ finally came to mind, and even then, it wasn’t the right word. Apollo children were born poets, and Will, like his siblings, excelled in always finding the right thing to say. But then and there, standing in the doorway of his cabin, heart ramming his ribs in protest, blood already tinting the tips of his ears pink, he didn’t care if he ever found the right word. Maybe he never would.  
  
  
 **XI.  
  
** Nico hated being in the infirmary, and Will didn’t care.  
  
It was hard to write down Nico’s symptoms, or figure out how to treat him other than a minimum of three days bedrest. In the end, they wrote it down as ‘temporary physical existence dissipation’. Will had no idea if that was actually a thing.  
  
Treatment for what the Apollo kids began to refer to as TPED was bedrest, plenty of fluids, and a sunlight-simulation lamp over Nico’s head at all times. For at least fifteen minutes every hour, Nico had to make sure his hands were under the lamp rather than under his blankets. Will figured that keeping in shadows was not going to help a condition caused by shadow traveling.  
  
As stated, Nico hated it. But he was doing better within the first day. Coach Hedge had told Will that over the course of their journey with the Athena Parthenos, Nico had been eating better and sleeping more. Will hoped to increase both things as much as he could and keep Nico within a healthy range.  
  
The good thing was that most of the demigods, nymphs, satyrs, and so on had been discharged from the infirmary by then, leaving Will more time to sit with Nico. He even skipped dinner at the pavilion in order to bring Nico food and eat dinner with him instead. One good thing about that pattern was that Will got to _really_ talk to him.  
  
Halfway through his mashed potatoes, Will propped his legs up on the side of the bed and looked up at the lamp thoughtfully. “Okay, you’re stranded on a deserted island and you can only have three things with you.”  
  
Nico rolled his eyes. “Seriously?”  
  
“Completely serious. The plane’s coming to take you there in about ten minutes.”  
  
With a sigh, Nico swirled his own mashed potatoes. “The world’s longest book, some sunscreen, and an unbreakable water bottle,” he said, nudging one of Will’s feet aside with his own. “And what if the plane was coming for you?”  
  
“Easy,” Will replied, nudging Nico back. “A first aid kit, a frying pan, and a suitcase with everything else I need in it.”  
  
Nico narrowed his eyes. “That’s cheating.”  
  
“Not if I say the suitcase is one item. Then it doesn’t matter what’s inside.”  
  
“ _Cheating_ ,” Nico repeated.  
  
“Fine, fine,” Will said, shrugging and making a show of looking defeated. “Just the suitcase by itself. At least I can store stuff in it.”  
  
“The first aid kid’s kind of cheating, too.”  
  
Will aimed a gentle kick to Nico’s knee. “There’s just no pleasing you,” he said with a grin. “Okay, so you’re going to the same deserted island, but on top of the three things you can bring with you, you can also bring one other person. Who would you bring?”  
  
“Probably... I guess maybe Jason?” Nico replied thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have to make a fire starter or anything. He could just hit some wood with lightning and voila.”  
  
Again, Will felt that punch-Jason-in-the-face feeling, but quickly quelled it. “You wouldn’t want to bring Percy? I mean, he could probably get you off the island pretty quick.”  
  
Nico shook his head. “Nah, Jason could do the same thing. Or, y’know, I could just hop into the Underworld and bail out.”  
  
Another kick to the knee. “Not in your condition, you couldn’t,” Will chided.  
  
“Alright, fine. Who would you pick?”  
  
Will didn’t even have to think about it. “You,” he said easily.  
  
Nico’s eyes widened. “What?”  
  
“You,” Will said again, setting his plate aside on the nightstand beside the bed and then crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
“Yeah, but... _why?_ ”  
  
Will figured that would be Nico’s reaction. He knew enough about Nico by that point to catch onto the fluctuations in his mood, or how he perceived himself. Hedge had said he had really improved in the last few days, but that didn’t mean his self esteem problem would be completely gone.  
  
Will shrugged dismissively, spreading his arms out, palms up. “Why not? I don’t think you’d be half bad company.”  
  
Nico’s eyes went from wide to narrow. “You obviously don’t know me that well.”  
  
Fortunately, Will was anticipating that. He crossed his arms over his chest again and grinned. “Well, that’s why we have to be on a deserted island together. I’ll get to know you really well and then I can judge if I want to stay on the island with you or not. If I want you to stay, cool. If not, there’s a nice big ocean I can shove you into.”  
  
In an excellent imitation of a goldfish, Nico’s mouth opened and shut twice. Finally, his ears turned red and his cheeks began to follow suit. “That’s stupid,” he said, but it hardly sounded like he meant it.  
  
“You say that after you just saw me barrel into a load of Roman soldiers and monsters,” Will reminded.  
  
Nico fought back a smile, but managed to nod. “Yeah, true.”  
  
“So, there’s one thing you’re going to learn about me. I’m not the brightest crayon in the box, Nico. Maybe that’s why I like you so much,” Will said, completely unable to ignore how it felt like his stomach was doing flips and his heart was trying to keep up. Then he decided to take a nice, kind of ridiculous leap of faith. “I have to go for a bit,” he said, starting to stand up. “I’ll be back to finish my dinner in like... ten minutes tops, okay?”  
  
Before Nico could say anything, Will promptly leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. As he expected, Nico didn’t say a word. Instead, he looked like someone had just electrocuted him, complete with a slight glow in his cheeks.  
  
“Oh,” was all he managed.  
  
Will walked away feeling like he had just dropped a fifty pound weight. He practically skipped to his next patient.  
  
  
 **XII.  
  
** Everyone knew.  
  
Literally. It was hard to walk through the camp without a group of people standing around, pointing and giggling. A gaggle of Aphrodite kids actually _cooed_ at him like a small flock of pigeons.  
  
So _maybe_ he had made it a little obvious.  
  
At the campfire the night before, Will had pulled Nico aside just after the singalong, not exactly pleased about taking him over into the shadow of one of the nearby trees, but it was necessary. Nico peered at him through the darkness, half his face lit up by the light of the campfire. Will’s heart did a little flip in his chest, apparently attempting to hop right up his throat. He swallowed it down and gripped the neck of his ukulele like it was his lifeline.  
  
“Listen, Nico...” he trailed off, kicking into the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “I’ve kind of been meaning to ask you something. And like, feel free to turn it down. I know it’s weird.”  
  
Nico didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. It was obvious by his expression that he already knew what Will was going to say. It was all guarded anticipation.  
  
“Um, okay. Like... _geez_ I’m supposed to be good with words,” Will started, smiling sheepishly. It was hard to meet Nico’s eyes, but he did it somehow. “So, like, have you ever kind of felt a _connection_ with someone? Like, you’re not sure why you feel like that, or why it’s that one person, but it feels right? You know what I mean?”  
  
Nico’s expression didn’t change, but he nodded, which was kind of a relief.  
  
It didn’t make talking any easier, though.  
  
“Well, I’ve kinda felt that with you, and I can’t explain it _now_ , since that would take forever. But I mean, if it all works out, I could explain it better? I just...”  
  
To his surprise, Nico rolled his eyes and took Will’s hand that wasn’t on the ukulele. “ _Yes_ ,” he said.  
  
Will blinked, gaped a little, and then blinked again. “Huh?”  
  
“I know what you mean,” Nico said, not letting go. “And if you’re asking me if I would go out with you, then _yes_ , I will.”  
  
“ _Huh?_ ”  
  
Nico just sighed, stood on his toes, and tried his best to kiss Will on the cheek. It ended up more on the underside of his jaw, but it totally counted.  
  
“Obviously, we’re not going to go full scale into this,” Nico continued, a smile already forming on his face. “We need to get to know each other better. There’s a lot about me you don’t know, and there’s a lot about you I don’t know. We’ll just figure that out, right?”  
  
Will nodded, a little too dumbstruck to say anything beyond ‘huh’ again.  
  
“Cool.”  
  
And that was how the ended up sitting together on a bench around the campfire while some of the Hecate and Apollo kids told scary stories, effectively freaking out the younger campers. The older ones were paying attention to something completely different.  
  
Nico leaned up against Will while Will had one arm around his shoulders. He couldn’t help but notice how they just sort of _fit_ together. Everyone couldn’t help but notice that they _were_ together.  
  
By morning, the entire camp knew. Not that Will cared so much about them.  
  
The thing was, he felt complete. He could think of hundreds of analogies that could have fit, but nothing really applied other than feeling like someone had reattached his other half. One day, he would ask Nico if he felt the same way, but he guessed what the answer was.  
  
The word _crush_ was long gone. _Soulmate_ was much better.   


End file.
